Optical networks are deployed and provisioned with various bandwidth increments. For example, optical networks may utilize a signaling and routing protocol to set up and tear down bandwidth connections. Disadvantageously, in choosing a path between a pair of end points, connections originating from a given pair nodes in an optical network could use diverse paths there between. This may occur for a variety of reasons such as via a path selection algorithm (e.g., open shortest path first (OSPF), etc.), due to bandwidth availability, and the like. For example, the shortest path from either end point may originate and traverse across different paths in the case of a tie or other contention in the path selection algorithm. In this scenario, bandwidth is allocated across two different paths when a single common path could have satisfied the request thereby fragmenting bandwidth across the paths between the nodes. Over time, bandwidth for a new connection with a higher bandwidth requirement may not be met since the bandwidth across the paths is fragmented by smaller bandwidth connections although the combined bandwidth available across the paths is sufficient to satisfy new higher bandwidth request. Disadvantageously, conventional optical networks suffer from poor or less than optimal bandwidth utilization which leads to lesser revenue returns on investment for the service providers.